Music

When I was about 9 years old I started playing the organ. My father had received an electric organ from someone, and shortly after I started playing on it. I got fairly good at it, considering my age. It didn't took long until my younger brother, Rudi, got interested in playing too. As an eager older brother I taught him everything I knew.

Computers

At about the age of 12 I got my first computer. It was an SVI Spectravideo 738 MSX. It had a Zilog ZX80 CPU and used 3.5" floppies. Even though I had no games, and the machine had almost no documentation, I was hooked! My organ playing days were over, and I was now into the world of computing. During the years I read a lot of books about programming, and I started entering into this gatherings of computer people, long before the time of LAN parties. After some time I even learn a little bit of Zilog assemble (you can only program with Basic for so long, right?).

When I got 14 years old I bought my first real computer, an Amiga 1200. This was when things started to become a little bit more serious. Finally I actually had a computer that was similar to other people, and it was possible to learn from others.

High school

When I started high school I finally found some likeminded people (not so surprising, considering I went to the local ICT-specialized high school), and I learned a lot more. By the end of high school it was apparent that the Amiga line of computer was being side-tracked by the common IBM PC. But I stayed with my Amiga until Microsoft released Windows 95. It was finally time to work on a PC with long filenames!

While I was in high school I also started attending these LAN parties. The Gathering was one of the biggest there was. The last time I was there, in 1997, I was even part of the network crew, in charge of setting up the backend network facilities. It was an interesting time, and I learned a lot from helping managing almost 4000 computers in a network.

Partying

After high school ended some years of quite rigorous partying ensued. If you talk to anyone I was hanging with at the time, they will for sure remember my cave, the basement where we had a lot of parties (to my fathers annoyance). Some girls was involved there too, can you imagine!

Military

In 1998 I started my military service. I ended up doing base-to-base communications, and was stationed on four different bases. Madla in Stavanger, Haakonsvern outside Bergen, Marvika in Kristiansand, and finally Oscarsborg outside Drøbak. I was mostly inside during my military service, running the communications.

I tried to never fire my weapon, unless absolutely necessary. I really dislike weapons. If I had thought about it more carefully, I should probably have tried to skip the military and done civil service instead, because I hate any kind of violence. I see people as weak and stupid, if they have to resort to force to make their voice heard.

Computer industry

After my military service I started working. It is now summer 1999. I got a job, while I was still in the military, at my former high school friend Edvin Syse's company. There I worked for 3 years doing Linux hosting and various ICT-related problem solving. I also sold some computers from time to time. At the peak, I can remember that we at one time had more than 6000 customers, and they were all in my hands! It felt pretty interesting to be in charge of so many users.

Sometime late in 2001 I was asked to join another company which was developing a fully automated hosting system. The job seemed interesting, so I started there. Unfortunately the company didn't have good economic control and was shut down 6 months later.

After 2 months of being unemployed the person in charge of that company that was shut down suggested I come and work with him on a new project. And naive as I was I followed. For one and a half year I worked in a company that sold cellphone services (SMS/MMS) to users. Things didn't work out well so I decided to quit my job there while things were still more or less working. 6 months later I heard that they were shut down aswell.

Self-employed

After two failed projects I figured that I could do better myself, if I was running the business myself instead of putting my trust in someone else. So I started up my company Smidsrød Consulting. Things went quite well for about a year, but then I had a period of low income, and I was forced to look for traditional employment again.

While still holding on to my excisting customers I started working full time on a project named Portfolio for a company named Grieg Multimedia that was located in Bergen. I was working from home, and this suited my style a lot.

While I was doing this I took an IQ test on the web, and the results were most pleasing. I have always felt that I had strong problem-solving abilities, and this IQ test at least proved that.

My wife

In 2006 I met a nice woman from Brasil on the 'net. After some months of chatting we decided to meet, and it was really love at first sight. In February 2007 I went to Brasil, and 14 days later she came back home with me to Norway. We got married in May 2007 and as soon as she had all the papers in order she started learning Norwegian.

As soon as she is finished with the Norwegian class the plan is to work in her fields; language teaching and translation. She speaks three languages, Portuguese, Spanish and English.

Higher education

Because I went straight from high school into work, I never went to college. But fall 2007 I finally had an opening from my employer. I was given the possibility to use 20% of my work hours to formalize my ICT knowledge and get my Bachelor degree. So I started ICT studies at the local college.

The future

I've always wanted to go to California to work, so I hope I will be able to do that in the near future. Since almost all the global ICT companies have a foothold there, it could be an interesting place to work.